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Fifth Sunday in Lent - Poulenc: "Litanies à la Vierge Noire" (1936) - version with string orchestra (1947)
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Poulenc returned to the Catholic faith of his youth in 1936 and began to compose sacred music with this piece. He made a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour shortly after learning of the death of his friend, the composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud, in a car accident. His account of the pilgrimage reads:
A few days earlier I'd just heard of the tragic death of my colleague ... As I meditated on the fragility of our human frame, I was drawn once more to the life of the spirit. Rocamadour had the effect of restoring me to the faith of my childhood. This sanctuary, undoubtedly the oldest in France ... had everything to captivate me ... The same evening of this visit to Rocamadour, I began my Litanies à la Vierge noire for female voices and organ. In that work I tried to get across the atmosphere of "peasant devotion" that had struck me so forcibly in that lofty chapel.
